Tuesday, May 19, 2009

An invigorating show of both serenity and extravagance, the Tree of Prosperity attraction at the Wynn Macau resort hotel and casino in Macau, China is an award-winning, multi-sensory experience. Joel J. Gread Associates, Inc. (JJGA) served on the show design team as the audio/video/control (AVC) engineering consultant. Conceived to excite resort guests with a show of theatrical excellence, the Tree of Prosperity’s sound system features a variety of JBL loudspeakers. Electrosonic Systems, Inc. (ESI) installed the AVC system, supporting the project out of its Burbank, California and Hong Kong offices.

The Tree of Prosperity show features spectacular movement of kinetic sculptures, video, lighting and dynamic music. The Wynn’s atrium, where guests first arrive on their visit to the resort, depicts Chinese and Western astrological symbols on upper and lower domes. The show begins with thunderous music as the upper dome opens, revealing an abstract light show on a massive video screen above. The screen soon splits in the middle as a huge crystal chandelier descends. The lower dome then opens as a 38-foot tree ascends from below. The stunning Tree of Prosperity’s 60 limbs have 2,000 branches and 98,000 leaves made of 24k gold and brass leaf. Audiences are amazed and thrilled throughout the presentation.

Originally, the Tree of Prosperity show had no existing sound design concept other than a generic single point-source track used for preliminary visual concept presentations. When JJGA designed the audio system, with input from JBL Professional, principal engineer Joel Gread specified a configuration of eight AM6340/64 full-range loudspeakers, recessed above the outer atrium ceiling. An additional eight ASB6118 subwoofers are co-located with the AM6340’s, while four AC2212/64 full-range loudspeakers are aimed virtually straight down from high above the audience, providing aural effects associated with the crystal chandelier. Lastly, there are four Control 29AV’s playing audio from the rotating base of the golden prosperity tree.

The eight AM6340/64 loudspeaker systems each have discrete audio sources and amplification, configured as four alternating left-right stereo pairs. Sound effects such as a sweeping wind effect are sequenced during the show at appropriate moments. Powering the loudspeaker systems are Crown CTs series amplifiers, each with an IQ Network DSP-based programmable input processor. There are five CTs 600, nine CTs 2000, and five CTs 3000 amplifiers, all with IQ-PIP-USP2/CN. For Macau, Crown provided amps in 220V versions.

The Tree of Prosperity attraction was so successful that the show and its team members recently earned a Thea (Themed Entertainment Association) Award for Outstanding Achievement for the project. “The Thea Award signifies that our contributions have been recognized by our peers, and that's rather nice,” Gread said. “It was particularly nice working with pros like those at JBL, and I look forward to our next opportunity to collaborate.”

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